Who Records with Overdrive?
 

I am always amazed at how many famous bassists and bass tracks use overdrive... often quite a bit of OD too. I am talking about some grungy fuzzed out tones. You don't typically hear the degree of OD in the mix but the raw tracks are crazy. Only after years of familiarizing myself with light/moderate OD and using it somewhat extensively myself in recording projects can I easily spot it in popular mixes... it's all over the place. The bottom line, to me, is that it sounds awesome in rock mixes even if it's not obvious.

How many here use overdrive in their rock-genre recordings? I am talking your prefered signature tone, not for say a paid studio gig where they dictate your tone.

Here is a great example (skip to 1:00)-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVPCC6V3xRs

Feel free to post your personal clips/examples or other tracks where an OD tone is used and blended well in the mix (e.g. the untrained ear wouldnt realize it).

I sometimes do, and sometimes not on purpose. I use a tab71 tube pre/di that breaks up nicely when pushed. Here's a tune where it may be subtle, you can hear the breakup on the leading note where bass is by itself but inaudible in the rest of the mix.
http://www.soundcloud.com/bkbirge/squish-em-dano

Here's another track with massive overdrive on bass:
http://www.soundcloud.com/bkbirge/smackit

The bass on this clip has a bright, B3K'ish distortion going on here(why I like the pedal so much), but many will think it's just a clean, bright bass signal. I did for a long time, many years ago. I bought a Hartke Kickback 15 in my early 20's, trying to get this sound.

You can hear just how dirty the bass was on that album at :57 into this song, on the chorded riff, but also note how once the distorted guitar comes in, it kinda blends perfectly, and you can hear the low bass and high-end that almost sounds clean. The harmonic character of the bright bass he's using along with a bright Peavey amp is responsible for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zXQQUpVN-0

I think that Cliff video might just be natural clipping, not any sort of effect.

He's using a Mesa D180... overdrive machine.

Here is another classic example (Queen). It sounds clean in the mix, quite rough and spongey solo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ReSk...eature=related

I used to play crystal clear, up until we went in to make our first record. I avoided drive at all costs because I liked punch and clarity for the bass.

My producer dropped a Boss ODB3 in front of my bass signal and had me running through a dimed Trace Pre-amp as 2 of the 4 channels we ran. The drive really worked for my tuning and the tracks overall.

This was for a metal record though I reckon more restrained styles can really benefit from a bit of wildness as well. Take Neutral Milk Hotel for instance for a dynamite example of how to use bass fuzz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ma1...ature=youtu.be

Rick 4003s5, and a bass pod.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgTOxlD8Oj4


My old band. THis was probably the first recording I did with a just a slightly overdriven sans amp and a p. THis was recorded with a very DIY set up in our old drummers basement. I like to be able to adjust the level of OD by just digging in a bit and being able to pull the reigns back and have a clean tone for different dynamics.

Dude, holy crap/ That's an incredible difference in terms of perceived tone and actual tone. Wow! It always sounded like a clean and slick P-bass in the mix, but god damn he's hitting that thing hard, and it's grinding up nice! I'll have to listen for more of that in their music. John mawfukin Deacon

The final signal is of course heavily compressed and eq-ed in the mix. But it sure works.

I tend to run one channel clean and one dirty, with the cleans being all the lows, and the dirty being the mids and highs starting at about 1.5k or so. I don't like it when my lows get distorted and "flubby" sounding (or whatever the technical term is) I'm not one for the vintage bass overdrive sound, where it sounds like the speakers are clipping. I just want some grind on the upper mids and highs to accentuate the attack.

Depends on the song, but I mic my 810 and DI off of my SVT at a 70/30 split. Then I take the DI track and run it back through a disto pedal (modded Vox V8-30) for a 3rd track & mix that in depending on the song. Sometimes heavy and sometimes not.

I've found that even a little overdrive on a "clean" track helps to put a bump in the midrange that makes the bass sit in a mix better.

Our producer likes grind.


https://soundcloud.com/#mamasan-band...-senses-premix

I bring a few different od pedals to the studio, and have had studio engineers in the past add dirt to my bass lines in post production

To me, there is a huge difference in answering "what do you record" and "what tone do you want"

No matter what i am recording, no matter what the artist is listening to, I will always take a clean track... so if its a mic'd cab, i will take a pre-eq from the DI.. if its pedals then one clean + one processed, if its vocals, one clean and one processed, an acoustic guitar one pup + one mic, etc..

The whole basis for this is that you can never ever make a processed signal clean...but its a simple matter to add afterwards.

On my band's most recent album, I had only a few spots where I didn't have my Fulltone Bass Drive active. I find the additional midrange that a good overdrive can offer help to make you more present, and help to fill out a mix -- even if you're not hearing the bass being overdriven.

Of course, I was also regularly adding more dirt on top of a mild overdrive when the songs called for it, but seldom was I going below a mild overdrive as a minimum threshold. I clicked on all of the options in the poll, since I use everything from phasers and microsynth to fuzz and delays.

Links in sig, if you wanted to hear samples.

I was tracking some ideas this weekend and used some pretty gritty bass to fill the raw (unmixed) mixes I was working on. This track is just a rough, nothin "public", but the isolated bass is a good example of a hairy tone that would be perceived as pretty clean in the mix. First 30 secs of each is all the example ya need. ;)

Jam-

http://soundcloud.com/dr_thunda/thun...23-bstuff2mix3

Bass only (Mesa Bass 400 with the preamp somewhat high... around 5 and a Sansamp BDDI in the FX loop for a dash of its particular hair)-

http://soundcloud.com/dr_thunda/thun...-bstuff2mix3-1

The bass is quite gritty! You'd never know though. Without it, it just wasnt filling the mix as thoroughly and my more a less aggressive fingerstyle with steel strings was gettin clangy on the highs. The spongey grit kind of tames/compresses the clank. I'd rather use tubes/OD to do it than compression (I havent used a compressor/compression since like 2007). If I can get away with it, I'd rather have compression only applied in the mastering phase.

I use overdrive or tube amp modeling on just about everything these days. Here's one that only used a slight fuzz to make it sound right.

Safe From Harm clip

Sounds great!

The link is funky... sends me to my crappy personal soundcloud page.